How to break in my headphones

Hey hey,

I've just bought (but they ain't arrived yet) some uber-lovely-jeez-can-i-really-afford-them? AKG 701s (RRP £315, but luckily I got them for about half that) as an upgrade to the fabulous AKG 240s. And apparently they need quite an absurd breaking in time before the quality kicks in. Now I was wondering what's like the 'acid burn-in' test for headphones: White noise, pink noise, sweeping frequencies, sub bass, classical music. i.e. what can I blast through them to make the cones (or whatever the equivalent in headphones is) sound lovely and loosened up.

And just look at the beautiful things:

wow, i'm envious

man i have been wanting those for a long while.... mmmmmm

anywho, here is the "burn-in" FAQ over at head-hi.org:

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f4/headphone-burn-faq-56744/

no noise or sweeping tones at high levels, just play the music you intend to use them for, at your usual listening volume, and leave it playing overnight.

http://headphones.com.au/FAQ/#11

Noice, cheers for the quick response guys. I guess I'll just leave my music collection on random whilst I go to work.....

are the akg 240s still the best. i bought them because of the research i did on this site. they are pretty good but i've heard better bass on other cheaper headphones imo.

next purchase i think i'll make after mine die are the grado sr-60's...

  YEK said:

are the akg 240s still the best. i bought them because of the research i did on this site. they are pretty good but i've heard better bass on other cheaper headphones imo.

do you hear it as poor bass response or inaccurate bass response? these two are completely different. If inaccurate then you have a problem. The 240s are built to pronounce pure sound with no doctoring or coloring like you might hear in these cheaper headphones, so what you hear is what you hear which is the key for mixing. They are studio headphones not really designed to play your favorite albums on.

the AKG240 are bloody brilliant. the only reason I've moved up is because I was feeling a bit mental after winning a sweepstakes at work and also I'm donating my 240s to my mate so I don't have to worry about a birthday present this year. The reason that everyone mentions the bass is due to the near completely flat frequency response on the phones, they're basically not coloured at all. So you can therefore put in whatever EQ on your amp etc. that suits your music style and they'll happily oblige. You get the choice as to what they should sound like rather than the phones having like a predetermined sound to them (which is normally having a boosted bass and top end response)

edit: As goffer said !

edit2: akg's don't die, they're built like brick shithouse !!

interesting interesting

*scratches beard*

thanks

I have a pair of these. The response was quite tight when I first got them. I spent a bit of time (about 24 hours) burning them in with heavy metal (dimmu borgir) but what really helped was that I left them in an unmuted headphone port of my sound card whenever I was not using them. After a month or so they really began to shine.

how to break in your headphones:

1. place headphones on the floor

2. drop trou, squat

3. happy breaking, hope it's clean.

The more I learn, the less I want to know. I dont want to have to worry about stupid shit like burn-in. Besides, if you're paying hundreds of dollars for some great sounding headphones I'd hope that the company would be kind enough to break them in for me.

Edit: Btw, mcbpete, congrats on your super awesome new headphones.

  Wall Bird said:

The more I learn, the less I want to know. I dont want to have to worry about stupid shit like burn-in. Besides, if you're paying hundreds of dollars for some great sounding headphones I'd hope that the company would be kind enough to break them in for me.

 

Edit: Btw, mcbpete, congrats on your super awesome new headphones.

i didn't worry about burning in my current headphones by leaving them on overnight, i just started using them right away - at first they didn't sound too good with harder rock music but then after about a week or so they sounded pretty damn awesome with everything!

breaking in your headphones is like getting in a hot spring with your 400$ selvage jeans

  Synthacat 9 said:

breaking in your headphones is like getting in a hot spring with your 400$ selvage jeans

no straight male has ever bought $400 jeans

I know a few

  Synthacat 9 said:

I know a few

not as well as you think

  Wall Bird said:

The more I learn, the less I want to know. I dont want to have to worry about stupid shit like burn-in. Besides, if you're paying hundreds of dollars for some great sounding headphones I'd hope that the company would be kind enough to break them in for me.

 

Edit: Btw, mcbpete, congrats on your super awesome new headphones.

This really just depends how accurate you want your mixes to be.

  acid1 said:

  Wall Bird said:

The more I learn, the less I want to know. I dont want to have to worry about stupid shit like burn-in. Besides, if you're paying hundreds of dollars for some great sounding headphones I'd hope that the company would be kind enough to break them in for me.

 

Edit: Btw, mcbpete, congrats on your super awesome new headphones.

 

This really just depends how accurate you want your mixes to be.

if they were broken in to be completely neutral by the company wouldn't this set the standard for "accurate" mixing?

I gave up on accurate mixing... since my tracks aren't that good who cares! If soulja boy can do it I can too! woo woo ngga

1. devise massive playlist of all your favourite music

2. place on loop in winamp at high volume

3. connect headphones

4. ??????

5. profit!

magic window

  Synthacat 9 said:

..completely neutral..

Huh?

anyway, is this not another huge crock of shit, like the other huge crocks of shit that audiophiles are fond of?

Yeah, breaking in? WTF? Boots and jeans need breaking in. Headphones are fucking headphones, African American.

Edit for fagginess